Please use Excel and include all Excel formulas and Solver solutions.

After tallying the receipts for their first year of operation, the owners of the Taco Barn are encouraged. Sales of their artisanal tacos, made from such exotic ingredients as ground beef, cheese, and beans, have been strong and seem to give hope to the coming year. Taco sales by month are shown in the table.

The manager is open to suggestions for forecasting models and decides to try both a linear trend model and an exponential smoothing model with an alpha of 0.8. Generate forecasts for the year using these techniques and then calculate forecast errors using MAD to determine which is the superior method in this scenario.

Month Sales January 474 February 485 March 501 April 588 May 579 June 673 July 594 August 679 September 608 October 699 November 732 December 735